My 5th Grade Military Service! Veteran’s Day reminds me of how different Lynn and I are. Yes opposites do attract! And what does that have to do with Veterans Day? Well, not much really, except that we always talk about how “I provided my military service while in the 5th grade at our local grade school.” Yes, really – I truly did! As a stereotypical man and woman, we are poster perfect as examples of the basic education learning and application principles and styles associated with our genders. Ma is detail oriented and I am principle oriented. As home school advocates who work with many parents around the State, we always like to use certain textbook publishers to make this distinction. Example: There are some publishers whose high school history textbooks will focus on a particular event and put virtually all the emphasis on the dates, the proper spelling of the important characters names, their roles in the event, and so on. But you can juxtapose this with the same treatment of that same historical event as presented in another publisher’s textbook and find that it has a completely different focus by hammering on why the event occurred, what the peripheral circumstances were, as well as the cultural impact following the event. It is like the textbooks were written by and thus for boys or girls. (Home schoolers then get to select the educational materials that fit the learning styles of their children.) Everyone is different and there are always anomalies among classifications of people, but some basic stereotypes are common to men and women. That’s just the way it is. And as opposites attract, they also find friction arising in their relationships as a result of their differences. Which is why a marriage is NOT a 50/50 proposition! Marriage is a 100/100 commitment despite the temptations to hold back and/or to get lazy. (Maybe I’ll expound upon this at a later time. Right now let me get back to our personal differences and how it resulted in my military service while in the 5th grade.) Ma has always been a good student. She enjoyed her education years and talks warmly about her school experiences. She can even still remember the proper names for all the major bones and muscles in the human body. She can spell words with more than one syllable! (“syll-a-ble”, hey that’s a three syliyblall word and I spelled it correctly – thanks to spel chek!). Ma is very academic. Even though it took her 42 years to get out of high school! (Yes this is true too! And, Yes, I will be telling you all about it in another story which is forthcoming. I guarantee that you will be surprised!) I on the other hand I am only detail oriented in areas that capture my attention. Otherwise I have never been able to internalize educational material from a strictly academic perspective. I am principle oriented and have a “big picture” learning style. Because I like numbers and math, I could always excel without any effort in that area. The same with science. Otherwise my interest melts away like frost flowers on an Indian Summer morning. As a result, I hated school from the very beginning. The long bus rides and lack of sleep only made it worse. For twelve years I could not stand spending so much wasted time sitting on a school bus – I despised it – until the last seven months of my senior year. (That was the seven months I spent sitting next to the girl I was going to marry! And, Yes, within about two of those months we both knew it! She was the answer to the daily prayers I had started more than two years before we even met! And, Yes, I do plan to write about this too – but later.) Let me get back to grade school. We learned to read in first grade using phonics. Every student in my first grade class could read proficiently as a result. But when it came to learning the ABC’s, I checked out. Somewhere in third grade my teacher realized that I did not know the proper order of the 26 letters of the English language. So I had to sit at a desk for weeks during recess (the only time of day worth going to school for) working on learning what every other kid picked up two years before. I was traumatized and determined that I would never cooperate again no matter what it meant – I hated being there anyway! Now, as this story unfolds you may begin to question who in the world is this guy. Or you may begin to understand a little more about me and how we can live the way we do. But please bear in mind that 100% of all our ‘success’ comes out of a marriage in which my Bride has supported every decision we have made, and the way she has been willing and happy to make the necessary sacrifices to lovingly support me and our circumstances through the years. Our marriage has been a 100/100 partnership from the very beginning and could have never made it otherwise. (And, once again, Yes, I will be posting a series of articles outlining the key events of the early years of our faith journey, but “not yet”.) Why such a disclaimer? Well let me back up to second grade. Ma tells wonderful stories about her grade school experiences. But mine are all more like this: I had my very first ever spelling test in 2nd grade. The details are etched in my head and I cannot get them out, even though I’ve tried. (And by the way, if you are one of those parents who have been reading these stories to your younger children – you may want to pre-read the rest of this post before you get in over your head and regret what bad habits and behaviors I may be teaching them.) I was sitting in the fourth desk back on the far left hand side of the room (as you look towards the teacher’s desk). We were all instructed to put everything inside our desks and to have a clean desktop except for a sharp pencil. (BTW: This has always been one of my ‘grrrr…s’. I hate writing with a pencil, they make my skin crawl even to this day. Just give me a pen and leave me alone - alright already?) Then we were all handed a single piece of lined paper. On command we all wrote our names on the upper left-hand line, and the date on the right-hand side of that upper line. Next we all numbered our papers down the left side column with the numbers “1” through “10”, skipping every other line. Okay. Everything was good so far. This spelling test was going just fine! But then the teacher threw me for a loop. She said we were going to take the test on the ten words from the day before. This was the ten words she covered the day earlier and told us to take home to study. Hit ‘pause’. (I’m sorry, but I just cannot tell a story without filling you in on the “bigger picture”. Remember, this is my personal learning style and I just cannot help it – even if it takes me so long to tell a simple narrative.) Did you pick up on that last sentence the teacher just told us about our first spelling test? That is what they used to call “homework”. I don’t know what they call it today, but I didn’t do “homework”. (Really.) For the vast majority of my 12 years of schooling, I hated being there and I sure was not going to take it home with me! Now you’re thinking, ‘Come on, how can a kid go through school and not do homework? He is blowing smoke where there ain’t any fire.’ But it’s true, I didn’t. I built the majority of my “general knowledge” from a variety of sources (see the post “This Old House” from a few days ago). First of all I really did try to pay attention in the classroom. The problem was it seemed that every day, no matter how hard I tried to concentrate, a bird would fly past the window! Well… I would miss at least an hour or so of whatever the teacher had to say after that! By that time, there goes another one! (I was also a good daydreamer.) Then I would soak up as much information as I could from the electrical education box in the living room. Not only could I learn a lot, but I could laugh at the programs too. (None of my teachers ever liked it when I laughed at them!) And then, because we were limited on how much time we could spend watching TV, I would turn through the pages of one of the 20 volumes of our 1958 American Peoples Encyclopedia. Finding a picture that would peak my interest, I would read the articles. In our household of five, I never saw anyone else use those books except on rare occasions. Neither of my older brothers seemed interested in them. My mother was too busy to read anything much other than her bible, and my dad was too busy working and didn’t know how to read anyway. Today they are on the bottom of the many shelves Ma and I built for our own family library which covers two walls from floor to ceiling. (Just so you know one of the reasons I have so much respect for my dad – I watched him when I was a teenager, as he forced himself to learn to read using his bible and driving my mother crazy in the 2-3 year process! He was tired of having to rely on one of us to read it to him.) It also helped me to avoid homework in that my parents had not had any ‘formal’ education of their own. My dad went to school for several years but quit to go to work full time on the farm they rented from. They were educated in the schools of hard knocks, family values, long work days, and experience. They were both very wise despite what some would say was limited education. It also helped that we lived a long way from town, out in the “boonies”, and we didn’t have a phone. (Then too, the dividing line for the postal service mail delivery that divides between St. Louis and Cape Girardeau lies between us and the school. So when we got into trouble at school the mail went from town, down to Cape Girardeau, then up to St. Louis, then routed back to the town north of us, and eventually back to our rural route - after about a week the mail eventually got to our parents.) Okay, you get the basic picture, so back to my first ten word spelling test in 2nd grade. You know, the ten words I had not studied. I have my paper on the desk in front of me. Name, date, numbers 1-10 on every other line. Then the test began. The teacher called out the first word. I enthusiastically leaned forward and pressed the graphite onto the paper – but stopped. I sat frozen for a moment trying to think of how to spell that word… “Is everyone finished?” (I didn’t say a word.) Momentarily she paused to allow a couple of kids to finish. Then came the second word. I repeated the motions from the first word… After sitting there realizing that I had no idea how to spell that word, I went back to the first word. Then I mentally started thinking back and forth about those two words. Eventually she called out the third word. By this time I found myself totally stumped and exasperated with the third word, I was so stressed that now I forgot what the first word even was! I was so discouraged that I just gave up completely. Before the fourth word was called out, I had turned my paper over, put my pencil down, sat back straight in my seat with my arms defiantly folded! As the test continued the teacher looked over at me a couple of times but said absolutely nothing! I was ready to accept any punishment, but I was never going to ever take another spelling test, never ever again, that’s it plain and simple – never. (Yeah, many kids make those promises to themselves.) But I kept my promise! In 10th grade high school I took a bio-chemistry class because I loved science. No one told me the instructor was a tyrant. He required every student to get a 100% on his weekly test of the periodical table. Anyone failing a high enough score resulted in the entire class repeating the test. (Of course this was his excuse to engrain the chart details into his students.) So to help the rest of the class I took my second spelling test ever, because he required the spelling of each element as part of the test. This was the second spelling test I ever attempted before graduating from high school. I took that test over and over and over, along with everyone else. I never understood how I could keep failing when I repeatedly checked to make sure all the teeny, tiny writing I had on the world’s smallest cheat sheet was spelled correctly. It’s just that it was so small I kept making mistakes trying to read it out of the palm of my hand! And this was just spelling! But I hated it with a passion! First they would teach you all these nonsensical spelling rules, and just the time you started to understand them, then they would say, “except…”! I don’t think there is a spelling rule in the English language that does not have more exceptions than the words that are spelled using the basic rule! “Grrr…” Ma laughs at me about it – so you can too. In fact she laughs almost as hard at the time she pulled the prank on me to cut my hair… Wait… (No I’ll have to save this for another story time. I have to get back to my 5th grade military service!) Everything so far is to help you understand the kind of school student I was, especially in grade school. The only thing I liked about going to school… was getting back home. Once we got back home all I had to do was farm chores. The only homework I ever did was read out of our own encyclopedias about whatever snagged my attention. As a teenager I spent my time immediately after school (once I wasted another hour on the school bus that is) saddling my horse and taking my dog to go find the cows and make sure they had enough water in the creek and springs and rounding them up to bring down to the barnyard at night. Whether the horse and I were sweating all over each other or we were freezing while I broke the ice in the creek for the cows, I felt that I was learning more out in the field than in the classroom. At age fifteen, the Lord got a hold of me and my perspectives changed on a whole lot of things – like everything. But my education attitudes were well entrenched. So I stayed with those encyclopedias and read them regularly. But going into 5th grade I was dead set against taking anything home with me just to carry it back the next day for no reason at all. And on this year our school had a new teacher. His name was Mr. Conway. To this day Mr. Conway was the absolute best teacher I had ever had, or would ever have. He taught me more than any other teacher even though I was his nightmare student! This is how it went. Turns out that Mr. Conway came to our school fresh out of his service in the United States Marine Corps! And his demands and expectations reflected that immediate service! I liked him and his mannerisms from the first day till his last at the end of the school year. But I was not going to change my ways or my attitude about school for nobody! Almost every day, and in almost every subject every day, Mr. Conway gave us homework. His expectations were right out of bootcamp! (My response was right out of my boot, even though the cow and hog manure permeated the leather.) Every day the class carried their books of homework home and I walked carefree to the bus empty handed. Virtually every day, in virtually every subject, Mr. Conway expected every student to have completed their homework. Most everyone did. But there were a few of us that did not. So we had to stay in during any recesses to finish. If we did not finish within his timeframe, we would be given a page to write out of a dictionary. After a few weeks Mr. Conway became more stern in his efforts to get the entire class to cooperate. Most of the students dropping behind got caught up. Three or four of us lagged back. Then came the harsher punishments. Misbehavior resulted in very difficult physical strains, such as “holding up the wall” or “sitting on the wall with your arms outstretched”. If Mr. Conway needed to speed up the process, he would add books to the outstretched arms. The three or four of us trimmed down to two or three. Then came the swats. Remember that Mr. Conway had just been released from the United States Marine Corps. So when you did not finish your homework for any given subject, you stayed in from recess to write pages out of the dictionary. If you did not finish the writing during recess, you had to take swats (not just one or two). And to take swats from this ex-marine meant that the heals of your feet could not remain on the floor no matter how hard you tried! Mr. Conway gave the hardest swats with a paddle of any teacher or principle I ever had during my school years. (And I had them from everyone!) So, during the bulk of my 5th grade year, this is how my days went. I had homework assignments for multiple class subjects almost every day. I refused to do any homework. So I had to sit at my desk during virtually every recess of the school year to write pages out of a dictionary. But I refused to write such a thing! After each recess I, and once in a while one or maybe two others, would assume the position and take however many swats had accumulated since the last go around earlier in the day. And on various and sundry days I would sit on the wall with textbooks on the backs of my outstretched hands, or for extended periods of time I would hold up a wall that needed no help. I set all kinds of school records just because I refused to do homework. I had a calloused back side which only helped protect me from saddle sores anyway. And this skinny hard-headed kid needed to build up some muscles anyway. I was learning to chuck hay bales, split wood, and shovel gravel all the better. Life was good. (But nowhere as good as it got the last seven months of my senior year!) Now this is where my Bride likes to watch people’s faces as I finish this story about my 5th grade military service. (I find myself smiling, a rare experience while typing these stories. Not because this is a joke, but because it is absolutely true – and I am proud to have had my part in this final portion of the narrative!) On Mr. Conway’s very first day of our school year, he introduced himself to us and explained how this was his first job out of the Marine Corps. We were his very first class! Now, on the last day of our 5th grade school year, Mr. Conway told us that he had an announcement to make. We all listened intently. I think he had become the highest respected teacher any of us had ever had – and for me, no one ever replaced that position in my experience! Mr. Conway explained as best as he could to an outgoing classroom of 5th graders that he had decided that teaching school was “not for me”. It seemed as though he was staring straight right at me as he talked about realizing that he had come to understand the teaching was not his calling. Mr. Conway had decided to go back into the United States Marine Corps! All I could think was, hey, I would rather joint the Marines than to be here either! So here is the sum of it. Mr. Conway left the Marine Corps to become a 5th grade school teacher. But then he realized there were kids like ‘me’. So he decided to go back into the Marines! But what’s the big deal about that, you may say? (If you are a U.S. Marine or a Marine veteran who has kept up, you already know – don’t you?) To us kids in his 5th grade class, the one and only class he ever taught before going back to his true calling, he was “Mr. Conway”. But to any Marine, stationed anywhere in the world today, or to any Marine veteran, he is not just “Mr. Conway”. To these men and women who are part of the military that allowed you to read this post without any fear of foreign enemies intruding your home or harming your children, he is “Commandant James T. Conway”! I boast that in my 5th grade military service, “I alone” redirected this hero back to his true calling to help keep the world a safer place and to guarantee that you are more secure in your homes and lives. I and “I alone” served you, my fellow countrymen by pushing this now retired United States Marine Corps four-star General to become the 34th Commandant of the United States Marine Corps (2006-2010). Among his previous postings were Director of Operations (J-3) on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Commanding General of 1st Marine Division and I Marine Expeditionary Force, taking part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and First Battle of Fallujah, Iraq. To see a brief outline of Commandant Conway’s impressive career, go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Conway This is an absolutely true story (except my fun embellishment over my personal impact on Commandant Conway’s decision to redirect his career back to the Marine Corps). I have never seen “Mr. Conway” since that last day of my 5th grade class. I have always wished to see him just one more time to thank him for his impact on my life and to assure him that his investment in me helped me to survive the schooling I hated, and that his example has always inspired me to pursue my own calling! I so hope to one day be able to shake his hand and thank him face to face for helping my Bride and I to become successful in our own right! (And now I am mopping tears.) Dear Father: Oh how I praise you for the way life’s experiences can bear such wonderful results even though our own sin and rebellion seems to threaten everything good! My heart has been wrenched from my chest and I have been so undone these last four months! Yet I must Thank You for the uncountable blessings to be searching for my Bride in a free country without armed boarders or marauding military! Oh how we overlook the countless blessings You pour out on us every day as we focus on our personal problems when tens of thousands face persecutions every day that I would never dare describe in this public forum! I offer You all my praise dear Lord! Now – Please – show us where my Bride is! And in the meantime, because You are big enough, please bless all our military personnel with the personal graces they each one need for their lives and that of their families! And as I proclaim it this evening, may others join me as we shout out – All Glory to God!
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 03:46:00 +0000
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